The importance of people through receiving feedback

One of the practices that have brought me the most learning in my professional life has been receiving feedback. Organizations have annual performance evaluation programs focused on trying to remember everything done in the year and give a rating. However, this form does not help continuous improvement in the development of skills required by people.

Providing feedback is very important in developing committed, motivated and productive teams. It helps us improve communication and cultivate an open and transparent culture. In Management 3.0, you have a great tool, Feedback Wrap. This tool helps us to provide effective feedback to people based on the comments received to define actions to improve.

The Feedback Wrap is prepared with 5 ingredients:

1. Describe your context: Start by offering context to increase the other person’s understanding and appreciation for your situation.
2. List your observations: Offer comments based on facts and concrete examples without creating value judgments.
3. Express your emotions: Let the other person know how we feel about the facts. It is important to create awareness of the impact of events on us and on the organization.
4. Explain the value: Explain our needs. The receiver may not realize what is important to you.
5. Offer Suggestions: Find out what needs to be done to bridge the gap between needs and facts. Suggestions are offered to help people move forward.

HOW DO I APPLY THIS PRACTICE?

At the 2nd meeting of the year of the board of directors, the importance of helping teams to improve their activities in remote environments was discussed and how to help the development of new leadership in the organization. An initiative from the HR area was also added to change the way in which the annual performance of people was evaluated. This evaluation was highly dependent on the way bosses provide feedback and how often they do it. Some bosses didn’t follow up on their teams’ improvement, and feedback meetings were just a non-productive meeting. For these reasons, we were looking for a tool to help us encourage a culture of feedback at all levels, starting with the tactical level where managers, bosses, and supervisors were found. Following this, I mentioned to the directory about the Feedback Wrap tool. It is a tool that I knew and that I had applied in another organization with good results.

The introduction of the Feedback Wrap to the organization consisted of the following stages:

• Raise awareness: I met with the leadership of my team and posed a challenge to them. They had to share their thoughts on the question: How could the company help you continue to improve as a professional?
• Work in small groups: we set up groups to solve the question through a list of ideas. What is surprising is that several mentioned feedback is a critical factor for their professional development. We returned to the main room and reviewed the list of ideas, which was very long. Then we meditate on the question: how many of these activities or actions do you carry out for the professional development of your teams? Definitely, this activity helped to see that feedback only requires the willingness of the person who gives feedback and the one who receives it.
• Presentation of Feedback Wrap: This dynamic allowed me to share about the importance of Feedback Wrap is a powerful tool for personal and professional improvement. Present two situations through a role play to show them how we could give feedback through the Feedback Wrap, in a correct and incorrect way. At the end of this session, I commented that those who wanted to receive feedback should seek me out later to coordinate the meeting.

• The time for feedback has arrived: We schedule the feedback session with one of the volunteers for the first hour of a Friday. Prepare the information on one of the projects this person was leading and we began our session. It is definitely a challenge to create a space of trust and transparency as it is the first time of a feedback session, but we succeeded. We walked through each of the 5 ingredients of the Feedback Warp where we concluded in a personal improvement plan that we would review over time. At the end of the session, we agreed on a possible date for the next feedback session. The surprising thing about the Feedback Wrap tool is that the person on my team was surprised that the conversation will be based on facts (ingredient 2), that it is honest (ingredient 3), that it explains what the company expects from the person ( ingredient 4) and that will end in the person giving feedback getting involved in some other way in the continuous improvement of the person on my team (ingredient 5). Just great!

WHAT DID I LEARN WHEN USING FEEDBACK WRAP?

My biggest learnings in the use of this practice are:

• Planning prior to using the Feedback Wrap is key to obtaining the necessary data and conducting a rehearsal prior to the feedback session.
• It is important to create a safe environment so that the person to whom feedback is given can express themselves freely and receive the feedback in the best way possible.
• Communication in feedback is very important. That is why you should consider applying some concepts of Nonviolent Communication.
• The relevance of feedback for a person must be transcendental in their professional development. It should also be your responsibility that it happens through requests to your immediate boss.
• Feedback Wrap can also be used among peers, as it can help resolve conflicts efficiently and on time.
• The Feedback Wrap is a tool that should be used to give constructive feedback focused on the activities that people carry out and not on what people represent.
• The Feedback Wrap provides direction. Suggest actions that could be carried out jointly through co-creating improvement actions.
• Feedback must be direct to build trust in the team. Consider that being direct does not mean being rude to people.
• The disposition of the person to whom feedback is given is essential. Many people are afraid of being judged and are often on the defensive. The Feedback Wrap is a way of giving the message to the person “you are important to us”.

Show them how important they are, give them your feedback!

Thank You!

For more information: https://management30.com/practice/feedback-wraps/